Tuesday, November 28, 2017

“Physical therapy might help to jump
start you,” suggested my doctor after having zeroed in on a current
disorder of my bodily “earth suit.” Apparently my calendar-challenged body needed more exercise....

That launched me into a three
times a week encounter with a young trainer chap named Kevin at the
Kinetic-Balance Center. The trajectory he prescribed for me was not
what is commonly thought of as body building and pumping iron with
bulging muscles as the goal. I was to concentrate on trying to rescue,
strengthen, and then maintain what puny muscles I had left as a
nonagenarian after sitting for protracted periods for too many years
at my computer in my writing studio.

Kevin told me to continue my prescribed
regimen at home daily and buy some dumbbells for weight lifting.
I had visions of the torture equipment in workout rooms depicted on TV, I
asked how heavy they should be. “Two pounders,” replied Kevin. I
bought them for a dollar apiece at a local thrift store. It didn't
take me long to realize that was about all I could manage to lift
anyway.

In addition to the P.T. program, I was
to continue my thirty minute daily trip to nowhere on my
recumbent stationary Schwinn 270 bike which time period was equal to five miles
in distance—and gave me a few paltry calories to spend. In the
flush of my initial enthusiasm for success, I was beginning “to
take thought” that I really might be able to “add to my stature” (i.e. alter my
body) if not by “a cubit,” (18 inches!..Jesus, were you exaggerating on purpose?) at least by a smidgen of strength for my
mushy muscles.

After some weeks on that program I
concluded exactly what Jesus had already told me in Matthew 6:27.
“Which of you by being anxious can add one cubit unto the
measure of his life?” One Bible version paraphrased it, “Can any
of you live a bit longer by worrying about it?” Some translations
expanded the meaning to include “adding a single moment to your life,
a single hour to your age, to your span of life.” The Message Bible
applied it vividly: “Has anyone by fussing in front of the mirror
ever gotten taller by so much as an inch?”

Bottom line? Nothing could be
accomplished by simply “taking thought” (or being anxious,
worrying). Even sweat and discipline and perseverance wouldn't cut
it. That's true even for the man who by arduous training (or taking
steroids?) attains a bulky body like the one pictured with this blog
post. If he doesn't maintain his regimen, his exaggerated muscles
degenerate to flabby again. So what's Jesus getting at?

Bible scholars differ in their
interpretation of those verses, but some light is shed when the
Matthew 6 verse is taken in context with 1 Timothy 4:7-9. Comparing
translations, some read “bodily discipline, physical training of
the body, exercise” “has some value, in some ways, has
limited benefit, helps a little, is somewhat profitable, is not
entirely useless.”

Bodily exercise is contrasted with
godly exercise or “training in holy living.” Spiritual exercise
is valuable in every way, useful for everything.”
“Godliness is profitable for all things, having promise of
the life which now is, and of that which is to come.” The Message
Bible hits the mark again: “Workouts in the gymnasium are useful,
but a disciplined life in God is far more so, making you fit both for
today and forever,” both for the present and the future.

So? I'll at least try to keep on hoisting those two-pound
dumbbells and continue pushing those bike pedals to nowhere. It does
“profit a little.” I know that I ought to exercise my temporal
body because it tends to drag me toward the slippery slope of
inactivity which in turn hinders my health and ability to do the work
for which God called me.

Without exercising myself to internal
godliness, even if I was able to pump serious iron, such physical exercise
would be of little and temporary advantage. My priority daily spiritual exercise
must be to present my mortal body, my "earth suit" to God in spiritual worship (Romans
12:1) for the welfare of my soul, to the pursuit of a holy life, since
godliness is profitable in all things in the present and in the
future.We can't beat that for a lasting result!

Monday, November 20, 2017

Author voiced! A CD of
the reading of the first 74 pages by the author included with the book.This is Leona's
First Poetry Anthology now out-of-print in its original
format. A Collector's Item!Order your author signed copy while they last!

From
the Introduction

In our early years we struggle to fulfill ourselves
through education, our jobs or careers, possibly in marriage and
family relationships. Perhaps through our talents or skills or the
approval of others. Time seems to be on our side. We rarely give its
earthly termination a thought.
Suddenly, so it seems, we find ourselves in the mature years of life.
It dawns on us that we aren't done yet! We haven't finished what we
started. Many dreams haven't materialized. We are forced to abandon
some and readjust others. We didn't achieve all our goals.
WE HAVEN'T YET BECOME WHAT WE HAD HOPED TO BE.
In frustration and then panic we may frantically try scrambling up
some earthly ladder toward completion, attainment or success.
Whatever happened to fulfillment? We
stare into the face of increasing limitations.
When we were younger, time seemed to drag its feet. Now time is
pushing the accelerator down with both feet. Life is like mist or
smoke: when we try to catch it, our fingers close around nothing. We
keep asking, "Where did the time go?" Have
we lost the entire centerfold of life?
LIFE IS CROWDING US INTO A CORNER! Have you
ever had the urge to seize a significant moment and hug it tightly?
You want it to last forever. Perhaps a particular period of life or
some enjoyable experience. Do you remember the childhood game of
"Statue"? You were supposed to "freeze" in
whatever position you were when the command was given. If only you
could freeze time at some ideal age or without any changes in your
family situation, your strength or your health. Or preserve an
especially happy moment. Fantasy! Let's
admit that we really wouldn't be satisfied if we could stop time at
this or any other moment. Besides, we might miss what God planned for
us just around the next bend. It may be better than anything
we've experienced in the past or present. We might miss the
invigoration of a fresh challenge or a hurdle to leap over.Sometimes the Lord saves the best wine until
the last! In any case,
we don't have a choice.
As human beings we are temporarily locked into earth's time frame.
The clock ticks on until one day we step over into a thrilling
eternal dimension where "time shall be no more."
TODAY is the best day
for the child of God! The choicest moment is right now.
The Lord must have something special in mind to keep us hanging
around on planet Earth. We've already lived our
yesterdays! Thanks for
Your generosity, God! We don't know about
our tomorrows. We
trust You with them, Lord! So today
is the only time for which we are accountable. We have the awesome
opportunity to live it totally for Jesus.
May God help us not to let today slip through our fingers without
living it up and celebrating life to the fullest. We may still have
time to be faithful stewards of the rest of our lives.
LIFE MAY BE CROWDING US. But we have NOW! And we may still,
through the generosity of God, have the opportunity to add more of
life's pages in full color in the days and years ahead.

Postscript

What
gives significance to this book is that I wrote it the year I was
recovering from major lung cancer surgery and just before the sudden
death of my husband the very year this book was published. The
"more of life's pages yet"
about which I hardly dared to speculate above--given the
circumstances I faced--have so far turned out to be twenty-seven
years. Let us Celebrate each day as a loving
gift from God and let Him do the counting of
how many years He has planned for each of you who reads these
words.

Below is the flagship poem from the book title,
page 64. Listen to Leona reading it on CD--in her more
youthful voice!

Thursday, November 9, 2017

God didn't have to do it that way when
He put Planet Earth's creation design in orbit. Instead of 24 hour
days, “there was evening and there was morning, one day,”
(Genesis 1:5) He could have established longer time segments for
humans, animals and vegetation. He could have ordained an earthly
orbit of the sun to give us several days of daylight in succession in
which to labor and stretched to several nights in a row for our
renewal in sleep.

In His wisdom and concern for our
mortal frailty and our need for more frequent physical and mental
restoration, God decreed our living time to be portioned to us in 24
hour bite-sized segments called days. Each morning we have
another fresh new day in which to start over, and He supplies us with
renewed strength to encounter it! That's really all we can handle at
a time, right?

What a generous provision! No matter
how badly we may have failed or come short yesterday, God
gives us a clean, fresh today. “It is of the LORD'S mercies
that we are not consumed, because His compassions fail not. They are
new every morning: great is Your faithfulness”
(Lam.3:22,23).

When the Israelites in their trek out
of Egypt were supplied by God with manna to eat, He gave it strictly
on a daily basis. “And they gathered it every morning, every
man according to his eating.”

Psalm 130:6
“My soul waits for the Lord more than they that watch for
the morning: I say, more than they that watch for the
morning.”
1 Chron. 23:30 “And to stand every morning to thank and
praise the Lord, and likewise at evening.”
Psalm 5:3 “In the morning, Lord, You hear my voice; inthe morning I lay my requests before You and wait
expectantly.”

Psalm 59:16 “But I will sing of Your
strength, in the morning I will sing of Your love; for You are
my fortress, my refuge in times of trouble.”

Psalm 90:14 “Satisfy us in the
morning with Your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be
glad all our days.”

Psalm 143:8 “Let the morning
bring me word of Your unfailing love, for I have put my trust in You.
Show me the way I should go, for to You I entrust my life.”

In gratitude for God's gift of each new
day, can we do less than entrust the day to Him and let the Holy
Spirit edit the hours according to the will of God?

Monday, November 6, 2017

Some are open and we freely
walk through presuming God is leading us. Other doors seem closed and
we aren't sure what to do about them. If the door is locked, we could
break the front door down and barge in—to our peril. Or we could
look for another way to get in—a side door, back door or a window.
However, that's dangerous—we may be mistaken as intruders.

There
are entrances that don't have an actual material door, like the entry
to a sheepfold in Jesus' analogy. It was simply an opening in a
circle of stones or some sort of barrier across which the shepherd
himself would lie across at night to prevent his sheep from
sleep walking and snarling wolves from sneaking their way in to do
harm. The shepherd was the door. Jesus claimed that He
as the Good Shepherd is
the door. (John 10:9) He warned against those who would attempt
illegitimate ways of entry.

There are doors
that confuse us because they seem to be swinging or rotating doors.
We enter as if to walk through but as we walk we find ourselves
rotating around and ending up outside again. Were we mistaken that
the door was open?

Some
doors are double and triple bolted and barred and guarded by security
people.

These are No
Trespassing doors. Let's not
even approach them. Usually they are clearly marked so we don't have any excuse to mistake them.

Other doors are
warm and friendly and we are entrusted with a key so that we can go in and out
at will like family.

It
isn't easy in our daily Christian walk to discern how best to deal
with particular doors. Moreover, the Holy Spirit's
guidance is unique to each of us and specific to situations. We need
to pray for wisdom to recognize God's leading in any given
circumstance. We like friendly doors where a WELCOME
mat makes the decision for us. Rotating doors give us pause since
we thought we were meant to go in but we find ourselves on the
outside again. By all means we don't want to trespass anywhere God
has clearly forbidden us. Let's not break a door down that God didn't
mean for us to enter. The Lord did endow us with free will so we may
actually attempt to do that sometime to our humiliation. However, there are God-guided occasions when even breaking through a roof is permissible. (Mark 2:4,5)

We
are instructed to knock
and ask and seek (Matthew 7:7) and not attempt forced entry. If God
has planned for us to enter a certain door or escape through one,
neither “four squads of soldiers, double chains, and guards in
front of the door” (Acts 12:6) can keep a door from opening, nor
can any man shut it. We are familiar with some doors in medical or
office buildings that automatically open to us as we approach them
with no effort on our part. God doesn't intend to confuse us with
closed doors but delights in opening the right doors for us at the
right time. (Rev. 3:8; Acts 14:27) In the case of the apostle Peter
incarcerated in prison (Acts 12:10) an angelic event occurred whereby
“an iron gate opened for them by itself.”

How about the doors we are encountering today? Would
the bottom line of our dilemma
of the doors be to
simply trust and obey
what
we are instructed by Jesus Himself? “Knock....”
That is, PRAY. Let's
knock in faith trusting in the goodness of the Lord that He will give
us enough light upon our path to know how to deal with a specific
door. And then listen to God's reply to our knock and follow His
directions.

Thursday, November 2, 2017

I believe in signs, whether they are
man-made or God's invisible direction signals. One of the most vocal
and visual signs

is posted at railroad crossings.

Here we find wise
life and death traffic advice and also hidden spiritual implications.
The material consequence, if the sign is obeyed, prevents you from being mangled
to death with your vehicle when run down by an unexpected speeding
train.

The spiritual consequences of not
heeding this advice have repercussions for our well-being as
Christians and the quality of our daily walk with the Lord.

I find that during any given day, as
the hours tick by, my life sometimes begins to feel increasingly
scattered in many directions. There are times when I feel fragmented,
disintegrated. Everyone seems to want a piece of me and I don't have
enough to go around. I have so many things on my plate that it is
heaped high. Like the pieces of a puzzle, my day, my life needs to be
assembled together again with care. “Recollected” is a good word
for my need, with the emphasis being on re-collected. All the
fragments need gathering up into some order. That's where the above
sign's message comes in with good advice.

STOP! That comes first. I simply have
to stop whatever I'm doing and take stock of my situation. Put on the
brakes. Let my interior engine idle. Stop the noise, the dissonance,
and embrace the silence so that I can think clearly. I shouldn't go
any further, cross any lines, make any decisions until I'm
re-collected and put back together again—something Humpty Dumpty
couldn't accomplish even with all the help of his military entourage.
Only when I'm still can I know how far off course I may have drifted.

LOOK! Look around. Look both ways to
see whether I've taken on too much or have been put upon by others.
Who has dished out all the things on my plate? Am I following God's
orders or my own inclinations and plans? Is the enemy of my soul
pushing me in every direction to distract me from my God-given
trajectory for my day and for my life? I need to open my eyes to see
what is happening to me.

LISTEN! After I've taken the above two
actions, it's time to listen. I need to tune out the static that
interferes with a clear audio signal from God. In this more tranquil
state I can finally begin to focus on priorities, discern between
what's important and what is just the tyranny of the urgent. Here is
where God can whisper to me and point out what unneeded barnacles are
clinging to my life and how to detach them from me.

Perhaps I need to take action on this
spiritual exercise more than once a day, if I feel what is called
“discombobulated”—a strange but descriptive word for being
bewildered and unable to think straight. We all know that feeling at
times. Like being disoriented or lost in a maze or caught off
balance. There are times when we may need to take a whole day off to
catch up with ourselves and reset our course. This is especially important when I'm facing some critical decisions and need clarity of mind and certain direction from God. STOP-LOOK-LISTEN is the key.

When using a GPS while
driving and inadvertently making a wrong turn or failing to follow
the voice or visual instruction of our device, we need to
re-calibrate. To admit our error, start again, and follow the
instructions to a new course to arrive at our desired destination.

When I hear God's still small voice in
the quiet of my STOP—LOOK—and LISTEN experience, and if I don't heed His
voice but persist in forging ahead in my overheated, impatient state, I will pay
a price with the consequences. I will get run over with the speeding
train of life. God has made a way of escape for us: There is safety
in BELIEVING IN SIGNS.

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ABOUT LEONA

ABOUT LEONA
Author * Speaker * Publisher * Broadcaster * Mom, Grandma, and Great-Grandma *cancer survivor * widow * poet * biographer * lecturer on creative writing.
Born in Iowa of Czech parents, she graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois where she and her future husband Ted were classmates. She served with her husband in mission, church, and educational work in Hong Kong, Singapore, China, and the U.S. They founded a church for Chinese Christians in Washington, D.C. and co-founded AMBASSADORS FOR CHRIST, INC. a campus ministry among Chinese university students, scholars and professionals throughout North America.
She has written, edited, or collaborated over 45 books, many foreign language editions, and published scores of articles in publications. Four adult sons, ten grandchildren, and thirteen great-grandchildren keep her busy when she is not at her computer in her studio in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia.

NEW FOR 2018!

ALL of her books-in-print are listed there along with images of their covers, reviews, endorsements, and full ordering information.

Her books are presented by categories with links to bring you quickly to books of your interest. You will find interviews with Leona, interesting background information and autobiographies of Leona and her late husband, Ted.